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Tag Archives: business tips

You won’t close every deal. You won’t convert every visitor to your website. Not every person that passes your trade show booth will love your product. And that’s ok.

I’ve said this before – and it’s an idea I’ve been borrowing for some time – that every “no” gets you that much closer to a “yes.” What does that mean? It means that if your success rate is 4 out of every 10, or 40%, you’ll need at least 6 people to tell you “no” before 4 people can say “yes.”

This should encourage you. Don’t worry about every lost deal. Do what you can to learn from that interaction – was your price too high or too low, were you too aggressive or not aggressive enough, etc. and then get ready for the next potential customer.

You can’t and won’t win them all. Stay focused on the success rate, and always try to leave everyone in better shape than you found them.

I know that it is becoming harder and harder to buy the perfect URL (MyExactBusinessName.com), but that shouldn’t keep you from getting close (MyExactBusinessName+City.com). I’m also a believer in avoiding the .net and .biz whenever possible. Consumers expect to see .com. They expect to see your business name in the URL.

If you have purchased your URL, you can get a professional looking email for very little cost. Google Apps for Work costs less than $5/month for a professional email.

What do I mean by this? I mean yourname@MyExactBusinessName.com. Having @gmail, @outlook, @yahoo, @aol, or @hotmail as your business email is not very professional.

3. Keep track of all your passwords

There are software programs that will help you generate random passwords. These programs also save and organize your passwords. One such program, 1Password, lets you generate random passwords for all your accounts while only needing to remember one password.

At a minimum, you could keep a spreadsheet of all your business accounts and passwords. I do that, however, I have the Excel spreadsheet encrypted with a password.

4. Not good at marketing? Outsource.

Not everyone that runs a small business is a marketing guru. In fact, very few are. That’s ok. As I always say, there are people great at baking cupcakes, but terrible at selling them. You don’t have to wear every hat and do everything for your business.

Outsourcing your marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, nor does it have to be outsourced overseas. You might know of outsourcing marketing in terms of advertising agencies, PR firms, marketing agencies, design agencies, etc.

Finding a firm (shameless plug: like Tinderbox Consulting) to handle your marketing, can make life just a little easier. And hopefully, drive some more sales too.